Ray McGovern reflects on the demise of “Russiagate,” now that two central pieces of the narrative have fallen apart. The first comes from newly-released transcripts of the House Intelligence Committee’s 2017 interview with a senior member of Crowdstrike, the firm that had supposedly provided the evidence that Russian agents were responsible for hacking the DNC’s servers before the 2016 presidential election. These transcripts show the official, Shawn Henry, admitting that his firm had no conclusive evidence that someone from Russia had stolen information from the servers, but that it may have been made to look that way by someone interested in framing a Russian actor. The other piece is the admission by multiple senior government officials that they never saw any clear indication of Russian involvement either, contrary to the impression the public was given by the claim that “17 intelligence agencies” all agreed that there was Russian interference in the election. Scott and McGovern reminds us that even though the narrative seems to finally be falling apart, it has already had the disastrous effect of forcing President Trump into a corner with his Russia policy, including backing out of three nuclear treaties that had helped to unwind the Cold War and deescalate the threat of nuclear war.

Discussed on the show:

“Twin Pillars of Russiagate Crumble” (Consortium News)

“VIPS Memos” (Consortium News)

“1/13/17 William Binney on Russian hacking, NSA spying, and counterproductive means of fighting terrorism” (The Libertarian Institute)

Ray McGovern is the co-creator of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and the former chief of the CIA’s Soviet analysts division. Read all of his work at his website: raymcgovern.com.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnkMgKHf6m4

Danny Sjursen talks about America’s long history of intervention in Somalia, beginning after World War II, continuing during the Cold War, and persisting today through the War on Terror. Too often, he says, the mainstream narrative around U.S. interventions starts right before the current terrorist attack, regime change, or civilian uprising, and most people miss decades of crucial history. In the case of Somalia, America and its allies in the UN supported various regimes through the 80s and 90s, ultimately helping to create two devastating famines in the 2000s that led to hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. Largely in response to foreign involvement, Al-Shabaab has risen to prominence as a countervailing force. Today the group whose existence is almost entirely the result of foreign intervention is being used as the justification for why that same intervention must continue. The U.S. and its allies must learn from the mistakes of the past.

Discussed on the show:

“What on Earth is the U.S. Doing by Bombing Somalia?” (CounterPunch.org)

Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. army major and former history instructor at West Point. He writes regularly for TomDispatch.com and he’s the author of “Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge.” Follow him on Twitter @SkepticalVet.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-8-cMpgJgM

Ramzy Baroud discusses the 100-year history of Jewish Zionism, which has resulted in a century of Palestinians being subjugated, killed, and forced off of their land. Palestinians have sometimes been criticized for not accepting the offer made at the time of the Balfour Declaration to keep about 45% of their land, with critics painting them as intransigent terrorists who refuse to negotiate reasonably or peacefully. Baroud explains how absurd it would be to imagine Americans, or any other people, meekly accepting the annexation of even 1% of their land, let alone over half of it. Today Palestinians have been left with much less than that 45%, and now the Netanyahu government is moving to take over even more of the West Bank in order to secure access to natural resources, land for settlements, and strategic military positions. Baroud believes that the Zionist project will not end until it has achieved the ethnic cleansing of every single Palestinian by whatever means necessary.

Discussed on the show:

“100 Years of Shame: Annexation of Palestine Began in San Remo” (CounterPunch.org)

Balfour Declaration

“Opinion | Annexing the West Bank Would Hurt Israel” (The New York Times)

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine

Nation-State Law

Ramzy Baroud is a US-Arab journalist and is the editor-in-chief of the Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of My Father Was A Freedom Fighter: The Untold Story of Gaza and The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story. His new book is These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons. Follow Ramzy on Twitter @RamzyBaroud and read his work at RamzyBaroud.net.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.

The following is an automatically generated transcript.

Show TranscriptScott Horton 0:10

All right, y'all welcome it's Scott Horton Show. I am the director of the Libertarian Institute editorial director of antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan. And I've recorded more than 5000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at ScottHorton.org. You can also sign up to the podcast feed. The full archive is also available at youtube.com/ScottHortonShow. All right, you guys. Time to welcome Ramzy Baroud back to the show here. Palestine. chronicle.com is the website and of course he's the author of my father was a freedom fighter. And the latest is these chains will be broken. A Palestinian Oh sorry, Palestinians stories of struggle and defiance in Israeli prisons, and we republish almost everything he writes at anti war calm as well. Welcome back to the show. Ramsey How you doing?

Ramzy Baroud 1:13

I'm doing great. Thank you for having me, Scott.

Scott Horton 1:15

Very happy to have you here. interesting piece. 100 years of shame. annexation of Palestine began in San Remo. Well, where's San Remo?

Ramzy Baroud 1:29

Well, San Remo is this beautiful dreamy town at the northern Italy, the Italian Riviera. And it has, you know it, despite the fact that it's a very beautiful place. It is associated with one of the most sinister agreements ever signed regarding, you know, kind of post World War when arrangements that took place between the victorious countries and the idea behind it is to divide the spoils of the Ottoman Empire to various countries and Iraq and Syria were divided between the British and the French respectively. When Palestine was given to the Zionists, you know, no questions asked.

Patrick Cockburn discusses Iraq’s increasingly desperate economic outlook as oil prices remain at historic lows. Iraq’s economy, like many of those in the Middle East, is hugely reliant on oil, with millions directly on a government payroll that depends almost entirely on the oil market in order to remain solvent. Worsening conditions could endanger an already fraught political environment in a country that continues to battle the remnants of an ISIS insurgency in the western part of the country.

Discussed on the show:

“Iraq will be hit harder by the oil price drop than by coronavirus or Isis” (Independent)

Patrick Cockburn is the Middle East correspondent for The Independent and the author of The Age of Jihad and Chaos & Caliphate.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.

The following is an automatically generated transcript.

Show TranscriptScott Horton 0:10

All right, y'all welcome it's Scott Horton Show. I am the director of the Libertarian Institute editorial director of antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan. And I've recorded more than 5000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at ScottHorton.org. You can also sign up to the podcast feed. The full archive is also available at youtube.com/ScottHortonShow. All right, guys on the line, I've got the great Patrick Cockburn from the independent independent co.uk and the author of a bunch of great books including the age of jihad. Welcome back to the show, sir. How are you doing?

Patrick Cockburn 0:53

Great. Good to be back.

Scott Horton 0:55

Good. Good to talk to you. As always, Patrick. Very important article. hear about Iraq. Iraq will be hit harder by the oil price drop than by Coronavirus or ISIS. And so yeah, it sure is because of the lockdown worldwide here. The demand for oil has just fallen completely through the floor and for a country like Iraq, they're just about entirely dependent on oil revenue to make everything go there, aren't they?

Patrick Cockburn 1:28

Yeah, I mean, it's, there's really nothing else you go to the market, in Baghdad or anywhere else in the country. You know, you find that absolutely everything comes from elsewhere. You know, you want to buy an onion, you want to buy a watermelon, these comes from Iran or turkey or anything more sophisticated, you know, it's sort of clothing, Turkey, you know, or from China or somewhere like that. There's almost nothing produced locally. So we've got about 90% dependent on oil revenues. But I think what's interesting also that this is in Iraq, this is, you know, it's it's dependent, but actually all the oil producers all the same, you know, Saudi Arabia, although they, they say that try to develop or have been trying to develop other economic activities, that completely dependent on oil. So if we're looking at a long term collapse in the oil price, we've had collapses before, but nothing as radical as this unlikely to be as long as this, you know, this, we were I think we're seeing I started change that in the 1970s we have the rise of the oil superpowers, you know, Saudi Arabia and the others, and that's going to go into reverse.

Scott Horton 2:40

Yeah. Well, that really could lead to massive instability, as you said, not just in Iraq, but throughout the entire Gulf region, right.

Patrick Cockburn 2:50

Yeah, cuz these are states, you know, in some ways that different Iraq, Saudi Arabia,

Aaron Mehta talks about all the issues with the F-35 fighter jet, a plane that has been in development for 20 years and still can’t do many of the things it was designed for. Mehta describes his long investigation into the F-35 project, which upon initial release had 13 “category 1” deficiencies, which are problems that could result in the death of the pilot or loss of the airplane. Some of these deficiencies have been fixed or “downgraded,” but serious questions remain about the F-35’s safety for its intended uses. Mehta also explains the ways the project was made politically untouchable from the very beginning by distributing the manufacture of its components among 48 states and many foreign countries. Now a project that produces planes that basically don’t work can never be dismantled.

Discussed on the show:

“Five F-35 issues have been downgraded, but they remain unsolved” (Defense News)

“The Pentagon has cut the number of serious F-35 technical flaws in half” (Defense News)

“The Pentagon is battling the clock to fix serious, unreported F-35 problems” (Defense News)

Aaron Mehta is Deputy Editor and Senior Pentagon Correspondent at Defense News, covering policy, strategy and acquisition at the highest levels of the Department of Defense and its international partners. Follow him on Twitter @AaronMehta.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.

The following is an automatically generated transcript.

Show TranscriptScott Horton 0:10

All right, y'all welcome it's Scott Horton Show. I am the director of the Libertarian Institute editorial director of antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan. And I've recorded more than 5000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at ScottHorton.org. You can also sign up to the podcast feed. The full archive is also available at youtube.com/ScottHortonShow. Okay, you guys on the line, I've got Aaron Mehta from defensenews.com Welcome to the show. How you doing, Aaron?

Aaron Mehta 0:48

I'm good Scott. Thanks for having me.

Scott Horton 0:50

Happy to have you here. I love this subject. We've been covering this thing for years and years here. unresolved issues in the F 35. Will they ever be resolve says here five f 35 issues have been downgraded, but remain unsolved. A piece with let me mention your co authors here, Valerie in cinah. And David B larder and Valerie incentive had done this huge piece last year, I guess, about a year ago. All about that. 35 there for defense news that's also worth looking at for sure. So I guess let's go through it. First of all, what does it mean? That it these issues have been downgraded from what category two what here?

Aaron Mehta 1:38

Yeah, sure. So just a brief history. As you mentioned, my colleague Bao last year got a hold of some previously somewhat classified as fo Yo, which isn't legally classified, but basically means we don't want to have to tell people about these stuff. documents that basically laid out what are called category one deficiency For the F 35, that's defined essentially, issues that could cause death, for the pilot can cause loss of damage to the airplane, basically means you can't operate the thing in combat, or be able to perform. And it's actually the missions it's supposed to do. Basically, category one is bad. So that we found that there were 13 of these things time. And so this would have been covering through the end of 2018. So we did a big project on that, as I mentioned,

Scott talks to Jeff Deist about the economic ramifications of the coronavirus, including both the virus itself and the government’s fiscal and monetary response. Deist certainly expects that we could be in for a severe recession, but is mainly of the view that this recession was coming soon anyway. It just took the right event to pop the bubble. Much of the ground that the country appeared to make up since the last crash, he says, has really been a reinflation by the Federal Reserve of the same old asset bubbles—and some new ones. The American economy has been overly financialized for decades, with ultra-low interest rates incentivizing companies to borrow money to fund ill-advised ventures rather than accumulating real savings and capital. A healthy economy that did save, he explains, would be able to endure a month or two of inactivity without the precipitate collapse we’re starting to see today.

Discussed on the show:

Anatomy of the Crash

Jeff Deist is president of the Mises Institute, where he serves as a writer, public speaker, and advocate for property, markets, and civil society. He previously worked as a longtime advisor and chief of staff to Congressman Ron Paul, for whom he wrote hundreds of articles and speeches. Follow him on Twitter @jeffdeist.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.

The following is an automatically generated transcript.

Show TranscriptScott Horton 0:10

All right, y'all welcome it's Scott Horton Show. I am the director of the Libertarian Institute editorial director of antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan. And I've recorded more than 5000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at ScottHorton.org. You can also sign up to the podcast feed. The full archive is also available at youtube.com/ScottHortonShow. All right, you guys introducing Jeff diced. He's the president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. That's misis.org, the Austrian economists over there. And they just published this new book, anatomy of the crash the financial crisis of 2020 Real quick on the gun. They're edited by Joe Bishop, introduction by Jeff Deist. Welcome back to the show. Jeff, how you doing?

Jeff Deist 1:09

I'm doing great, Scott. Thanks for having me.

Scott Horton 1:12

Amazing. You put out a book about the current financial crisis, just what six weeks into it here?

Jeff Deist 1:19

Yeah, I hate the term current financial crisis because I think it's it's just a flare up of an ongoing financial crisis. And I think a lot of this was baked into the cake already. And that's why I'm particularly leery of people who are trying very hard to get away with blaming all this on the virus and the shutdowns I mean, I personally think the shutdowns are an extreme overreaction. But that's not really the thrust of this book here. The thrust of this book is to say, hey, look, here's some of the conditions that were already set, really going back, at least to the crisis, and in many ways farther back than that. So I think the Coronavirus was a precipitating factor, but I don't think it was the cause of this crash.

Scott Horton 2:06

Well, even Trump himself called it the Obama bubble, the stock market bubble and all this back before he inherited it, and then took full political ownership of the economy. And it was pretty clear. I mean, I have access to you and Mark Dornan and Bob Murphy and people like this. So the question has been for the last, at least, you know,

Daniel McAdams discusses the latest incident in the strange story of the U.S.-backed coup attempts in Venezuela, which seek to replace President Maduro with someone more friendly to “American interests,” like Juan Guaidó. Most recently, a small operation by a few American special forces troops was thwarted almost as soon as it began, leaving Guaidó and his followers looking even more impotent, and ironically boosting Maduro’s popularity. McAdams stresses the need for the United States to mind its own business, leading by example rather than trying to meddle in the affairs of other countries. The global coronavirus crisis has made it especially clear that America simply does not have the resources to interfere all over the world, since it cannot even manage things particularly well at home.

Daniel McAdams is the executive director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity and the co-host of the Ron Paul Liberty Report. Follow him on Twitter @DanielLMcAdams and read all of his work over at Antiwar.com.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.

The following is an automatically generated transcript.

Show TranscriptScott Horton 0:10

All right, y'all welcome it's Scott Horton Show. I am the director of the Libertarian Institute editorial director of antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan. And I've recorded more than 5000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at ScottHorton.org. You can also sign up to the podcast feed. The full archive is also available at youtube.com/ScottHortonShow. Aren't you guys introducing the great Dan McAdams from the ron paul Institute for peace and prosperity and of course, co host of the Liberty report with Dr. Paul as well. Ron Paul institute.org is the web address. How are you Dan, welcome back to the show.

Dan McAdams 0:59

I'm great. Scott, thanks for having me back. How you doing?

Scott Horton 1:02

I'm doing great man. Very happy to have you here and to talk about the Bay of Kooks. That's what I'm calling good stuff. They had the Bay of Pigs and the Bay of goats and this one is the Bay of losers, I guess. Some former Green Berets, a couple former Green Berets failed miserably at launching some kind of coup in Venezuela. Can you get us up to speed Dan?

Dan McAdams 1:29

Yeah, it's pretty amazing and it's hard to really get a handle on it. But you know, the, the more I sniff Scott, the more I smell, the horrible smell of Mike Pompeo and Elliott Abrams. But, but, you know, apparently, you know, this has been in the works for a while. Certainly AlJazeera has done some good reporting in the Washington Post has also published the documents each question that you know, there was a contract between this green beret, this Goudreau, and one guy dough himself to do this overthrow meal sounds kind of half baked. You know, I don't know that they had, we do know there were a bunch of troops that were over the border in Colombia, they've been cooling their hills for a while. If you remember, Scott, maybe I'm not remembering exactly when they went over there. But as I remember, they were actually being badly fed, and they were in pretty bad condition. And apparently, they were supposed to be part of this plot. Of course, none of that came off and ended up being a couple of guys in a fishing boat that were pretty easily caught by the Venezuelan security forces here a few days ago. So it's a very strange, very strange situation.

Scott Horton 2:36

Scott interviews journalist Bas Spliet about the ongoing war in Yemen. Spliet reminds us that even though the Houthis are still referred to in most of the Western media as “rebels,” they have actually been ruling 80% of the country since 2014, and it’s really Saudi Arabia’s puppet ruler Mansour Hadi who is on the outside looking in. The people of Yemen continue to suffer terribly thanks to America’s support for Saudi Arabia and the UAE as they conduct a war of deliberate starvation and genocide there. President Trump could end this suffering with a single phone call.

Discussed on the show:

“After Another ‘Coup’ in Aden, Which Government in Yemen Is ‘Legitimate’?” (Antiwar.com Original)

“US maintains intelligence relationship with Houthis” (Al-Monitor)

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.

The following is an automatically generated transcript.

Show TranscriptScott Horton 0:10

All right, shall welcome it's Scott Horton shelf. I am the director of the libertarian Institute editorial director of antiwar.com dot com, author of the book fool's errand, time to end the war in Afghanistan. And I've recorded more than 5000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at scotthorton.org dot org. You can also sign up to the podcast feed full archive is also [email protected]. Slash Scott Horton show. All right, you guys introducing boss split. He is a master's student in history and Arabic Studies at the University of Ghent, Belgium, where he researches the anti nuclear weapons movement in Europe of the early 1980s. That's interesting. He is proficient in Arabic, traveled to Syria in 2018. And lived in Cairo, Egypt in 2019. And aspires to become an investigative journalist after graduation. Well, we sure as hell writes a great piece about Yemen, I can tell you that we're running this one on anti war calm today. After another coup in Aden, which government in Yemen is legitimate. Welcome to the show, boss. How are you doing?

Bas Spliet 1:22

I'm doing very fine, Scott. Thanks for having me. I'm a fan of the show. So it's an honor to be on.

Scott Horton 1:28

Oh, cool. Well, happy to hear that. And it was great to read this piece. I can tell. You're really on the story here. So you know, I guess the the context is, obviously the conflict over who controls the port city of Aden down there in the south of Yemen. But you also give great context to the whole war. So I guess first of all, we'll go ahead and take us back as you do to the fall of the Solid regime and the rise of the Houthis and the Hadi government, because you kind of have to set us up to understand the divisions in the south between the Hadi government, and the southern Transitional Council and so forth. So, go ahead and rewind and start wherever you think people need to hear.

Bas Spliet 2:24

Yes, we touch up on important points. And that is a complex conflict, but it's not that difficult to unwind. So let's try to do that. Basically, I will just from the start, say that I have listened to your conversations with NASA IV. And so you know, where I got maybe where I got the original idea of writing this article from, but I think what happens very recently, the coup in Aden really provides a window into that larger picture which we can spell out. And that is what basically what happened very recently was I think right now it's a little over a week ago, the southern Transitional Council, which are separatists that are funded and supported by the United Arab Emirates,

Scott interviews reporter Arielle Zionts about her recent story about a pregnant South Dakota woman who died of COVID-19 in federal prison. Andrea Circle Bear, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, was charged under an obscure law in connection with a drug sale in which she herself was likely not a primary participant. She was sentenced to two years in a federal prison hundreds of miles from her home. She later contracted COVID-19, and died in April, though not before delivering her baby via C-section. Zionts continues to search for answers about where Circle Bear contracted the illness, and more importantly why a pregnant woman was treated this way in the first place.

Discussed on the show:

“Grandmother says Eagle Butte woman should have never been transferred to prison while pregnant” (Rapid City Journal)

Arielle Zionts is a criminal justice reporter at the Rapid City Journal. Follow her on Twitter @Ajzionts.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.

The following is an automatically generated transcript.

Show TranscriptScott Horton 0:10

All right, y'all welcome it's Scott Horton Show. I am the director of the Libertarian Institute editorial director of antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan. And I've recorded more than 5000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at ScottHorton.org. You can also sign up to the podcast feed. The full archive is also available at youtube.com/ScottHortonShow. All right, you guys introducing Arielle Zionts from the Rapid City journal. They're in South Dakota author of this important news story. Grandmother says Eagle Butte woman should have never been transferred to prison while pregnant. Welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Arielle Zionts 0:59

I'm good. How are you doing?

Scott Horton 1:00

I'm doing great. I really appreciate you joining us here on the show today. So this is the story of is it Andrea or Andrea?

Arielle Zionts 1:11

Andrea but her family she goes by Andy. Andy

Scott Horton 1:14

circle bear. Okay.

Arielle Zionts 1:16

Also her maiden name is Hibear. And that's actually how her how her obituary was written. I see.

Scott Horton 1:23

Okay, and yeah, and then the reason that she's dead is because she got COVID in prison, and what was she doing in prison?

Arielle Zionts 1:33

Sure. And then first to clarify, we actually we do not know where she contracted it. But she began showing symptoms while in prison, and then ended up dying in the hospital but of course, under federal custody, and in terms of use it asked what she was doing in prison. Hmm, okay, sure. She um, she was convicted of, it's a crime that most people probably haven't heard of. which is called like maintaining a Like maintaining a home for drug distribution, but it's it wasn't even her home. If you look at the details what it seems like what was happening is she was maybe just helping someone, basically, maybe sell drugs, but that she probably wasn't the main person because again, she was not charged with dis distributing, and she, it again, it wasn't her home. And then she was sentenced to she lived there. No. So she her grandmother told us that she'd never lived there. She was living with her grandma. And I believe the factual basis says that she didn't live there either.

Scott Horton 2:42

Because it sounds like and I guess I'm speculating a litt...

Gareth Porter discusses an investigation by The Grayzone into Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s presentation of documents purporting to prove to the Trump government that Iran was developing a nuclear weapons program. The new investigation, however, suggests that this was nothing more than an attempt to trigger U.S. military conflict with Iran using documents that had been entirely fabricated, rather than obtained by Mossad, as claimed. As usual, it is only months or years later that we discover the truth behind plots like this, even while we narrowly avoid large-scale armed conflict in the moment.

Discussed on the show:

“With Apparently Fabricated Nuclear Documents, Netanyahu Pushed the US Towards War With Iran” (Antiwar.com Original)

“To Pressure Iran, Pompeo Turns to the Deal Trump Renounced” (The New York Times)

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist on the national security state, and author of Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare. Follow him on Twitter @GarethPorter and listen to Gareth’s previous appearances on the Scott Horton Show.

This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: NoDev NoOps NoIT, by Hussein Badakhchani; The War State, by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Listen and Think Audio; TheBumperSticker.com; and LibertyStickers.com.

Donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal, or Bitcoin: 1KGye7S3pk7XXJT6TzrbFephGDbdhYznTa.

The following is an automatically generated transcript.

Show TranscriptScott Horton 0:00

For Pacifica radio, may 3 2020. I'm Scott Horton. This is anti war radio.

All right, y'all welcome it's Scott Horton Show. I am the director of the Libertarian Institute editorial director of antiwar.com, author of the book Fool's Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan. And I've recorded more than 5000 interviews going back to 2003, all of which are available at ScottHorton.org. You can also sign up to the podcast feed. The full archive is also available at youtube.com/ScottHortonShow. Right now introducing my very favorite reporter, the great Gareth Porter, this time, writing for the grey zone at the grey zone calm and also reprinted at anti war.com. With apparently fabricated nuclear documents, Netanyahu pushed the us toward war. with Iran Oh say it ain't so. Gareth Porter. Welcome back to the show, sir.

Gareth Porter 1:05

I'm glad to be back. Thanks again, Scott.

Scott Horton 1:08

Netanyahu telling lies to increase tensions between the US and Iran. Who could have imagined. But you reminded me, I guess I had forgotten this, that when Donald Trump took America out of the Iran nuclear deal in May of 2018, that was just a couple of weeks after Benjamin Netanyahu, his big press conference, or well, publicity stunt anyway, I don't know if he took any questions, his big publicity stunt where he revealed all of Iran's nuclear documents, he claimed, and that's what you're talking about here. These apparently fabricated nuclear documents. So those documents certainly played a role then in changing the narrative in the time leading right up to When Trump repudiated the deal, so we can talk about the consequences of that. But first of all, tell us why you're so sure, then, that these documents were not in fact liberated by the Mossad from a top secret facility in Iran.

Gareth Porter 2:15

Right. You know, this is this is a story that I love, in part because I'm able to show that there are multiple levels on which the Netanyahu tale of the Mossad going in, in dark of night, and stealing half a time supposedly of the most highest classified top secret nuclear documents from out from under the noses of the Iranians is totally false. And, and, of course, the first one, the first level,